Shapes

Posted on

Music this morning, because I need some cheering up after Mrs 6000’s car nearly killed me twice on the way to work. It stalls SO easily, leaving you a sitting duck when, for example, turning right across oncoming traffic on the appropriately-named Main Road. My issues probably stem mainly from the fact that I don’t drive the vehicle very often. I’m sure it’s one of those things that you learn to avoid when regularly driving it. Otherwise, it’s a simply lovely car with some emissions problems that we didn’t know about when we bought it. Because no-one did. Apart from those devious Germans in the software lab.

I digress. Back to 1994, and the theme for the Lillehammer Winter Paralympic Games.

This song was a massive flop for Morten et al., reaching number 27 in the UK charts, and doing nothing anywhere else. That, together with the tensions within the band indicated that it was likely to be the last single from a-ha. Oh noes.
History shows us that this wasn’t to be the case, but it was a bit scary at the time. Anyway, because of the hiatus which followed, this remains the only single released by a-ha that doesn’t appear on any of their studio albums. You’ll thank me when that question comes up at your next pub quiz.

Still, with the 20/20 vision of hindsight, this is a nice, positive song. I’ve almost forgotten that I’ve got to drive home again this afternoon.

Monitoring the situation

Posted on

The common or garden beagle is known as a hunting dog. It’s been that way since the first description of something akin to a beagle (floppy ears, ruined lawns, disobedient, ate socks) in Greece in 500 BCE. The modern South African beagle owner faces a bit of a dilemma, however, as foxes (more recently the traditional prey of hunting beagles) are pretty sparse around the neighbourhoods of Cape Town and the hunting thereof is generally frowned upon anyway.

Although not trained as a hunting dog, Colin will happily go after Egyptian Geese and Hadeda Ibises, cantering playfully along nearby without really alerting them that she’s on the prowl, then suddenly hunkering down into Sport Mode and belting along until they fly away. Sure, Colin is fast, but they have wings. Checkmate.

And so Colin has taken to hunting on a smaller scale: geckos. 10 cm lizards of the infraorder Gekkota. There are plenty of them around at the moment, which will be adroitly plucked them from the walls, brought inside and tossed around the living room in the manner of a cat toying with a mouse, or an orca flinging a seal for fun.
It’s not exactly sport.

This might even it up a bit though:

1006

Yep, obviously that’s in Australia. Nowhere else does wildlife get so stupidly off the scale. This is a Goanna, and they get even larger than this one.

To quote police chief Martin Brody:

We’re gonna need a bigger beagle.

No chance.

Metros of the world

Posted on

I like this. It’s one of those Neil Freeman data visualisations. Here are the 140 “high capacity, grade-separated heavy rail” systems (city metros) of the world, all neatly put together on one handy image, from sprawling Shanghai:

shanghai-1

to little Lausanne:

lausanne-1

Worst. Metro. Ever.
Looks like an unravelled Ebola virus.

And once they’re all listed in order, it looks something like this:

ee2037c22

That top line features Shanghai, Seoul, Beijing, London, New York.

You can find out more details and even buy the poster for your subway-themed office wall here.

For soundbites only

Posted on

This is a really rubbish column. (No, not this one, the one I’m about to link to.)
(Jeez. Don’t be so rude.)
(Honestly.)

Anyway, as I was about to say, THIS is a rubbish column. The warning signs are all there. It’s got scare quotes in the title. It’s unscientific, it’s biased, it’s pants. It uses only carefully selected facts from pieces of research that suit its narrative. It’s so bad that you could quite understand sad-faced LCHF cult members holding it up as an example of some of the stuff that their sinister movement has to put up with, while conveniently ignoring the fact that they themselves use exactly the same M.O..

It does the anti-Banting brigade no favours, save for this wonderful analogy of Noakes’ bizarre disciples:

Here’s how I’d describe Noakes’s trusting fans: told by Noakes that they’re flying, they yell: “Look at me” and “So far, so good” as they plummet past a 10th storey window and plunge towards the ground below.

Because yes, when you haven’t yet hit the ground, all does seem to be going to plan. The weight has fallen, you’re full of energy, and you’ve never felt better (maybe because you haven’t thought of the long term consequences). But then that’s probably because no-one really knows what they are.

Even pseudoscientific websites like the medically-challenged dietdoctor and the falsely authoritative authoritynutrition which claim to have “scientific validation” of the long-term safety of the diet, can’t actually provide us with anything more than studies done over 2 years, when you look more closely. That’s certainly long-term if you’re a hamster, and positively eternal if you’re a mayfly, but for humans, that doesn’t really even enter into “medium-term”.

Look, hey. My body is my body. Yours is yours. You’re more than welcome to fill your body with whatever you want as far as I’m concerned. And I even have the manners not to (outwardly) judge you for it. Unlike most of Tim’s weird flock.